Constructing Islam in an Early Modern Anthology: Intertextuality, Politics, and Religion in Seventeenth-Century Europe

Abstract

This article discusses an early modernSammelband(collected volume) that compiles epithalamia celebrating the wedding of Elizabeth Stuart with two translations, William Vaughan’s “The new-found politicke” and Robert Ashley’s “Almansor.” By highlighting the varied uses of Muslim exemplarity and alterity within one compilation, this article reveals the effects of recontextualization invited by the process of book building in the larger context of the Thirty Years’ War. ThisSammelbandstudy argues that translation, repurposing, and the material processes of compilation unsettle narratives of religious difference used by European writers to make sense of political conflict in the early seventeenth century.